Month: January 2022

Briefings

Background Briefing: January 27, 2022

On By gram

 

Understanding Putin’s Mindset and Why He Won’t Accept Ukrainian Sovereignty

We begin with insight into why Putin has manufactured this crisis over Ukraine and why Western leaders can’t grasp what is underpinning Putin’s mindset which is Russia’s historical view of Ukraine that ironically no longer applies since Putin’s actions in the last decade have turned the Ukrainian people from friends to enemies of their former compatriots. Joining us is Emily Channell-Justice, the Director of the Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program at the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. A sociocultural anthropologist who has been doing research in Ukraine since 2012, her current research focuses on political activism and social movements among students and feminists during the 2013 to 2014 Euromaidan mobilizations and we discuss her article at The Conversation, “Why Putin Has Such a Hard Time Accepting Ukrainian Sovereignty.“

 

Your Gas Stove is Killing You and Your Planet

Then we will look into a study published today in the journal Environmental Science and Technology which finds that gas stoves pose a risk to public health and the planet. Joining us is Rob Jackson, Professor of Earth System Science and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. His lab currently examines the effects of climate change and droughts on forest mortality and grassland ecosystems and is working to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the Global Carbon Project which Jackson chairs. He is the co-author of the new study at The American Chemical Society, “Methane and Nitric Oxide Emissions from Natural Gas Stoves, Cooktops, and Ovens in Residential Homes.”

 

Why Americans are Detached and Alienated From the Purpose of Government

Then finally we examine why abstractions like inflation and the deficit make it impossible for our government to deal with the reality of improving the lives, health and well-being of Americans while these same political leaders and politicians have no problem throwing money at the Pentagon and subsidizing Agribusiness and the fossil fuel industries etc. Joining us to assess why Americans are detached and alienated from the purpose of government which is to serve the governed, is Ryan Cooper, a national correspondent at The Week and Managing Editor at The American Prospect. He is the Cohost of the Left Anchor podcast and we discuss his new book, just out, How are You Going to Pay for That? Smart Answers to the Dumbest Question in Politics.